No. Wait. I remember now. I didn’t support any of those people.
Dammit! Why can’t the world be as simple as Michelle Bachmann, where there is black and white and nothing inbetween — where the color of someone’s skin is the determining factor instead of complicated things like their experience, stand on the issues, and education?
But no, that’s just too subtle for her. The fact that the majority of Americans supported a Senator who graduated at the top of his class from both Columbia and Harvard Law, whose positions on the issues most matched theirs, and who belonged to the party that had won more votes in three of the last four Presidential races is completely meaningless to her, because the only thing she sees is the color of Obama’s skin.
Let’s see … there is a word for someone like that, isn’t there?
Next time your conservative friend talks about how much Obama has destroyed the economy, point out:
The Dow was at 7,949 when Obama took office. It’s now at 16,130.* Under Obama, the Dow keeps setting new records.
Unemployment was at 7.8%. It’s now at 6.6%.
GDP growth is harder to quantify. I am not sure where the image here got its numbers. From what I can tell, it averaged around negative 3.1 under the last year of Bush and has averaged around 1.7 under Obama. Not great numbers, but certainly an improvement. (There was one quarter where it was 4.1% but using the best number and ignoring the others is misleading.)
The fiscal deficit, which is the gap between expenditure and revenue, was at 9.8% of the GDP under Bush, and was 4.9% for last year.
Consumer confidence under Bush was at 40.0% when Obama took over. It is now at 80.7%.
So anyone who tells you things are going downhill is just plain wrong.
Then again, anyone who tells you were are doing great is also just plain wrong. Almost all of that economic gain has gone to the 1%. The rest of us are still floundering, and the middle class is dying. Unemployment is still too high and wages are still too low. And the debt keeps rising.
Bottom line: Obama is not destroying the economy. You’re thinking of Bush. However, he has not solved everything either, so Obama supporters who try to sugar coat things are exaggerating.
Had the Republicans passed a jobs bill, maybe we would be in better shape. Our infrastructure is falling apart, and we could be hiring millions of people to fix roads and bridges for a fraction of what we give away to the 1% in tax breaks and subsidies they don’t need. Investing in people as well as our infrastructure is wise and pays off dividends in the long run. If we had a Republican President, there is no doubt in my mind we would be doing this now. However, the Republicans have repeatedly said that they will stand in the way of anything Obama wants. They don’t want him to claim successes for anything. The interests of the party outweigh the country’s needs, after all.
That’s the real economic scandal.
* all numbers are as of February 18, 2013, updated from the illustration accompanying this, to the best of my ability. (Some sources were difficult to interpret and I am not an economist.)
Anyway, Miss America pageant contestant and Fox News “reporter” Gretchen Carlson was quite upset about CVS’s decision to no longer sell cigarettes.
"Businesses need freedom!" Fox News continually shouts. "A business owner shouldn't have to answer to anyone about their internal decision-making … Except when they decide things we here at Fox don't like. That's different."
I think the real reason Fox is so upset is because President Obama applauded CVS for taking this position. And as we all know, if Obama is in favor of anything, Fox News is legally required to oppose it.
I anxiously await the day Obama proclaims that "breathing is good."
It’s hard to debate with people who are convinced that the United States is becoming a tyranny.
Does anyone really believe that Obama will say, “I’ve decided to suspend elections and remain President-for-Life”? Do you really believe the military, who swear an oath to the Constitution and not the President, will go along with this? Do you think all the politicians who won’t even pass a simple jobs bill for Obama will roll over at this? Hell, can you imagine Hillary Clinton deciding she’ll go along with it?
It ain’t gonna happen. But some paranoid people who probably should be taking some sort of medication think that basically “If I don’t get my way, then clearly this country has become a tyranny.”
There are a lot of things our country does that I don’t like. And I think the President has become much too powerful (but that has been going on for generations). But the chance of anyone turning our country into a tyranny is next to zero. Calm down already.
This usually comes up with gun debates. Gun owners who feel that their rights are being trampled cannot understand that the vast majority of Americans disagree with them. Even the Supreme Court disagrees with their interpretation of the Constitution. Only 13% of Americans in the latest Gallup poll think there are too many gun control laws. 49% say there aren’t enough, and the rest think it’s just fine or have no opinion.
As I stated previously, the way you get change in the US is by getting the population on your side and voting in change (through referendum like the ones legalizing marijuana and gay marriage), by electing politicians who agree with your views, or by bringing lawsuits to protect your rights and affect change. Sometimes your viewpoint will lose. That’s how it works in a democracy.
The latest crap is about Obama’s Executive Orders. Executive Orders are not mentioned in the Constitution, but have been around forever and the Supreme Court has said they are Constitutional. There’s one internet story going around about “Obama’s 932 Executive Orders” which is a complete pack of lies (whoever wrote that hopefully was wearing flame-resistant pants). Further, he’s issued less Executive Orders than many of the Presidents before him.
So just calm down. There are indeed issues concerning our personal rights and liberties that we should be worried about with the government. But we’re not going to become a tyranny.
EDIT: Obviously, this was written during the Obama presidency. I no longer hold to this belief.
An independent government committee has determined that the NSA program targeting American citizens is (surprise!) illegal. Well, most of the committee did — the two Bush appointees dissented.
Their report concluded that the collection of bulk phone records has provided only minimal protections at a huge cost to our freedoms.
Obama’s recent speech on this topic was about as weak as it could be. He spoke of the need to have spies and intelligence gathering (which no one disagrees with) and tried to convince us all that therefore, this was not too great or unusual. Admittedly, he also said the program should be cut back, but he wouldn’t go so far as to question the need for it in the first place.
The Bush people disagreed that the program was illegal (let us not forget that the program started under Bush, with his “Patriot” act) but did agree that it should be stopped nonetheless.
But seriously, the blame falls on all of government — Congress approved the Patriot Act, after all, and for Congress to now claim that they are shocked that the NSA is doing things they gave them permission to do is ridiculous. Obama is also responsible. He voted against the Patriot Act extension as a Senator but expanded it once he became President. (Ironically, he has spoken of the need to cut it back once he’s out of office, with the pretentious idea that he can handle this but some other President couldn’t.)
Let’s hope this leads to the Supreme Court finding the Patriot Act unconstitutional.
Secretary of State John Kerry has presented evidence that chemical weapons were used in Syria, thus justifying our action.
All over the globe, people are saying, “Wait, haven’t we heard this before?”
When Colin Powell, on behalf of George W. Bush, assured us that Sadaam had weapons of mass destruction, most of the world said, “Well, he’s the President of the United States. He wouldn’t lie about something like this.”
So now there is a lot of skepticism among our allies, which we deserve. (Thank you, GWB — the incompetence, dishonesty, and the damage caused by your Presidency continue to haunt us.)
There are some major differences between the two situations, though:
First, we have UN inspectors with evidence that chemical weapons were used, along with actual victims.
Second, and more importantly, we have a President who does not want to go to war. Bush and Cheney were looking for an excuse to go after Sadaam for a variety of reasons (“He wanted to kill my Dad,” “Halliburton will make a ton of money”, and so on).
Obama clearly does not want to get himself into another Iraq, especially in Syria where there are no good guys. He warned Assad not to use chemical weapons in the hopes of preventing such a disaster, but that didn’t work and now he’s painted himself into a corner where he has to react. He has stated more than once that this will be a drone-style attack without any “boots on the ground,” but to what end? Will this really accomplish anything?
A few days ago, I criticized Obama for acting without congressional approval. He’s a Constitutional scholar — he used to teach Constitutional Law at the Law School level — and whaddya know? He turned around yesterday and asked Congress for approval.
This was not only the right decision legally, but also politically. Congress is now stuck in the situation where Obama can deflect whatever blame comes his way. “Hey, you guys voted the way you did, and I followed your instructions,” he can reply if things go bad either way. Smart.
But maybe Congress and the world would have a more uniform view had George W. Bush not lied about Iraq. To quote GWB, “Fool me once, shame on — shame on you. Fool me — you can’t get fooled again.”
And, just in case it isn’t blatantly clear, a majority of Americans voted for Obama.
Now, you may disagree with these positions — and you have every right to do so — but you’re in the minority. Sometimes the minority is right. But when you’re in the minority, a claim that you represent “The Will of the People” just doesn’t cut it.
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